Toriad y Dydd
by Fflur Cadwgawn
Summary: "Mycroft, when we signed on for this little job of yours, we did NOT expect to be captured, detained, tortured, and otherwise inconvenienced in the middle of the Patagonian jungle going after your missing anthropologist!" John and Sherlock go undercover for Mycroft in Argentina, but run into problems. My NaNoWriMo challenge this year. (Thriller)
1. Chapter 1

Toriad y Dydd/Break of Day

Chapter 1

Summary: Mycroft needs help investigating the disappearance of a British anthropologist in the Patagonia region of South America. Naturally, he turns to John and Sherlock. But the two wind up with more than they bargained for when they are captured by the same insurgents responsible for the anthropologist's disappearance…..Rating because things will get intense in later chapters.

* * *

I don't own anything except my degrees in history and anthropology.

* * *

John sat in a plush armchair, an untouched glass of water next to him on the smooth, polished oak surface of the desk. He willed his good hand to stop shaking, but whoever had come up with the phrase "mind over matter" clearly had not been writing from experience. He flexed his left hand, still encased in the cast, and winced when the broken bones flared with pain. John was still having trouble believing he was back home, safe, in London, England, and not in a cell somewhere in the Patagonian highlands. He was grateful that Mycroft was allowing him time to describe what had happened, and annoyed at himself that he had such a difficult time trying to get it all out so that the older man knew.

"…And then when they brought Ross Asher back," John said, swallowing hard, "he was so beaten and bloody we barely recognized him." He risked a glance at Mycroft, and wondered how the man could sit there and passively listen to the awful tale. Next to him, Sherlock sat stoically, the ugly gash on his temple barely starting to heal. If Sherlock's dislocated shoulder was bothering him, he wasn't letting it show. John wished Sherlock would speak; he hadn't spoken since they had been brought back to Trelew from the cell.

"I did what I could for him, with what we had available," John continued. He breathed deeply. "But it wasn't enough. God, Mycroft, those people are monsters. Doing something like that to another human….." He sat back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling without moving his head. "You have no idea what it was like."

"Enlighten me," Mycroft said quietly.

John nodded, and tried to find the words.

* * *

_Two months earlier…_

The man known as John Hendricks, at least in this place, stepped off the plane at the Almirante Marco Andres Zar Airport in Trelew, Chubut Provence, Argentina. He knew from the file that this place served the nearby town of Rawson, which had been settled by Welsh colonists in the 1800s, and that there were a reasonable amount of people who could speak his language. John scanned the surroundings with interest as he followed his fellow passengers into the airport proper. If he didn't know better, he would have thought that Mycroft had sent him to a lakeside town in the Swiss Alps instead of Patagonia. _Plenty of time for sightseeing later,_ John told himself firmly as he made his way to the passport check area. He tried not to fidget or appear uncomfortable as he presented his British Government-issue passport with his fake name. (_What if they find something wrong with it?_ he thought for a wild moment, then squashed that train of thought. Mycroft knew what he was doing. Hell, the man practically _was_ the British Government. If the British Government issued you a passport, then the passport was authentic. Even if you were to have a name as ridiculous as Thaddeus Jones on it, it would be deemed authentic. He hoped.)

His passport was handed back to him with no more fuss over it than what had been shown to the passports issued before him in that line. John took it, placed it firmly in the inside pocket of his coat, and went to get his bags.

John found his bags, and slinging the army-issue duffel over his shoulder, feeling the familiar clank of medical equipment inside it, he turned to find his way out of the airport, and nearly bumped into a tall gentleman with greying hair that had once been pitch black. "Excuse me," John said quickly, but the man made no move to let him pass.

"John Hendricks?"

"Yes, that's right." John's left hand clenched unconsciously on his duffel. Mycroft had said he'd send someone from the embassy to meet John once the plane landed. John whistled a few notes of the song that Mycroft had said would be used as identification by all under his personal employ, and the man finished the notes to the final stanza of the Tallis Canon with him.

"Henry Van Dyke," the man said, holding his hand out. John fumbled with his suitcase, and shook the hand. "I'm sure Mycroft Holmes has told you why you've been sent here."

"Yes."

"Good. Your past as a doctor will be useful," Van Dyke replied. "You know what you have to do?"

"Mycroft briefed me. What exactly was Ross Asher working on to make him important enough to keep him quiet?"

Van Dyke eyed him. "Ross Asher is an anthropologist, Mr. Hendricks. Sometimes, anthropologists run into trouble."

"Sorry. What's an anthropologist?"

"Anthropology: from _anthro_, meaning man, and _ology_, meaning study of. Its classic definition is the study of man in all times and places. We study both humans and culture, and nearly everything linked to those," Van Dyke continued, and he turned and led John out of the Almirante through the Saturday afternoon crowd. "Yes, I'm an anthropologist as well, under the employ of the British embassy. However, sometimes anthropologists can be mistaken as spies by the people they are studying. There have even been reports of anthropologists being labeled as witches by the local populace. We're working with the assumption that the latter is what happened initially to Ross Asher."

John stared. "That is completely, utterly ridiculous," he said.

Van Dyke shrugged. "It goes with the territory. Usually the witchcraft allegations are in conjunction with cultural turbulence, or at the very least if the local populace is both superstitious and under stress. Generally speaking, it's the outsiders and cultural unconformers who've been declared unmutual who normally get such a label."

_Lesson one of the day,_ John thought, wondering at how casually Van Dyke was giving him this information, and filed that knowledge away for future reference.

"Ross Asher is working for me," the other man said. By now they were nearing the food vendors. "He's a brilliant, upcoming scientist in his own right. In fact, he was after some rumours of a sensitive cultural nature when he disappeared last week."

Again, John stared.

Henry Van Dyke sighed. "I see this will take some explanation. Evidently Mycroft failed to give you all the information you need in order to help find Ross."

"Speaking of Mycroft," John said, "his brother was coming here as well. We weren't on the same flight because Mycroft didn't want it obvious we were working together. Did he make it here safely?"

"Yes. A young fellow from the embassy fetched him yesterday from Buenos Aires." Van Dyke held open the main door of the airport for John. "I understand you're to have minimal contact with each other?"

"Yes," John said again. "We thought it was best."

"And so it is," Van Dyke agreed. "The embassy holds a regular gathering, the most recent of which is tonight. It is a black tie affair and will be a good excuse for you to meet the other British nationals here in Trelew, including your friend."

* * *

The man called Eric Sigerson, at least in this place, glanced around the small living quarters that Ross Asher had acquired in Rawson with the British embassy's help. Behind Eric, the embassy aide—just a child, really, who had only managed to snag the job in Argentina because of his wealthy parents—shifted nervously and cleared his throat. Eric rolled his eyes. "Honestly, you're as bad as Anderson," he sniffed, just loudly enough for the aide to hear him. "If you can't be useful," he snapped louder at the child, "go outside and wait. You're disturbing me."

The younger man's eyes widened. "Sorry, sir. Mr. Van Dyke said to stay with you."

Eric rolled his steel grey eyes again. "Then stand in the doorway," he sneered, "and try not to breathe too loudly. I can't concentrate."

The boy, for what he was worth, reluctantly moved to the doorway.

Eric huffed irritably at the boy's obvious ineptness, then strode to the bookcase, where his eyes had picked up some journals disguised as books. A clever idea, if you didn't know that _On the Question of Outlaw Amnesty in the Old American West_ was a non-existent work and therefore couldn't have been written by a fellow named Joshua Smith. Eric opened the journal, and found that it was written in symbols that definitely were not the Roman letters he was used to. He eyed one arched symbol. If he wasn't mistaken, then that particular symbol was used in the ancient Iberic language. And that oddly curved symbol was one found in the Ogham script used by the Irish until the tenth century A.D. His respect for this Ross Asher was raised. Slightly. Obviously, the man had been involved in some kind of research that scared him, enough to code his notes on it.

"I'll take these with me," he said, waving the journal as he swept the others (which also all were marked with professional-looking fake titles and authors on their spines) into the crook of his elbow. For once, the boy ("_Aide_, Sherlock!" John's voice said firmly in his head) with him was wise enough to keep his mouth shut. Eric rolled his eyes, and told John's imaginary presence in his head to kindly leave. Then he followed the..._aide_ out to the waiting embassy car.

Henry Van Dyke would need to see those journals.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_In which the author proves that she has quite obviously never been to Chubut Provence in Argentina, much less set foot outside the borders of her home country. _

_P.S. Sorry I posted this chapter twice. I realized after a quick preview (for continuity purposes, of course) that I had neglected to write in a scene on which I had spent two or three paragraphs in the first chapter. On the plus side, this chapter is quite long!_

* * *

The man called Eric Sigerson, at least in this place, slapped the document titled _On the Question of Outlaw Amnesty in the Old West_, supposedly written by a fellow called Joshua Smith, on Henry Van Dyke's desk. Van Dyke arched an eyebrow.

"Ross Asher's personal journal," Eric said absently. "There are others. At least he was smart enough to write it in code, in languages and alphabets very few people speak today."

"Interesting," Van Dyke said. "How did you find it?"

"Look at these titles," said Eric, waving his pale hand at the two other journals. "Those are not titles of true books."

Van Dyke thumbed through the journals, and found that the man was right. Beside the _Amnesty_ title, there was _Gold Mining and the Settlement Question of Southern Nevada_, written by a Benjamin Cartwright, and _History of Porterville, Wyoming Banks_, by Lom Trevors. He knew Ross read avidly (as Van Dyke himself did), and someone casually glancing through the many, _true_ titles in the tiny apartment would miss these. If he recalled correctly, Ross read about anything from Ukrainian history to theoretical physics.

"Can you translate these?" Van Dyke asked, idly noting the several language scripts used in the journals. "I thought not," he added when Eric shook his head. Eric's mop of black curls fell into his eyes; Eric brushed them away impatiently. "There's a woman at the embassy who is brilliant with linguistic puzzles—" but Eric violently cut him off.

"_No!_ The less people involved in this, the better," he hissed.

"My dear boy, Ross's disappearance has affected us all. Surely there is someone at the embassy you trust?"

"There might be," Eric said grudgingly. "But just because I trust them doesn't mean they're not in the pockets of someone else."

* * *

The man called John Hendricks, at least in this place, stood in front of the mirror in his hotel room in downtown Trelew and adjusted the black tie. The suit had been rented for him by Henry Van Dyke; John, in his haste to help Mycroft, had failed to pack such attire. If a case assignment said you were going to be spending much of your time in the South American jungle, you certainly wouldn't need a formal suit. John smiled wryly and turned toward the door as a knock sounded.

"Ready, John?" came Van Dyke's voice from the other side.

"A moment." John quickly packed a few things into his pockets. If the black tie affair had taken him by surprise, he was going to learn from that lesson and be prepared. If Sherlock would be at the gathering tonight, John knew that having some essentials in his pockets would be vital.

Then, taking a quick glance around the small hotel room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything John opened the door.

Henry Van Dyke stood there, wearing a suit similar to John's. "I have a car waiting downstairs," he said.

_Of course_, John thought. Van Dyke reminded him almost too much of Mycroft with his efficiency. Aloud, he asked, "How many people will be at the party tonight?"

Van Dyke shrugged. "There are a few dozen British nationals in the city now, and a few more than that in the neighboring towns. There could as easily be fifty or more people there, or there could only be ten. Not everyone's schedules revolve around those that the embassy follows."

* * *

When Van Dyke's car pulled up to the curb at the British embassy, not far from John's hotel, John could see that there were already several people gathered outside it. He started at the sight of Mycroft and Sherlock both mingling with the crowd as the faint sounds of a waltz wafted through the damp evening air. As Van Dyke stepped out of the car and motioned for John to join him, John fervently hoped that nothing in his pockets would be needed during the course of the night.

Van Dyke was already introducing him, calling him "Dr. Hendricks" and proclaiming loudly that the very next day John would be flown by helicopter to the hospital unit set up for the villages outside Trelew. Then Van Dyke gripped John's shoulder and steered him toward Sherlock.

"Eric!" Van Dyke boomed, loudly. John saw the faintest of grimaces on Sherlock's face at the unfamiliar name, but turned to greet Van Dyke with a smile John knew was as false as the one he himself wore. "John, this is Eric Sigerson. Eric, John Hendricks. I thought the two of you might like to know there is another Londoner in Trelew."

Sherlock gave a curt smile, and sipped at the glass in his hand. It was only ice water, John saw. "Thank you, Mr. Van Dyke," Sherlock replied. "That was…thoughtful."

John raised an eyebrow—had Sherlock actually been _courteous_ just now? Out of the corner of his eye, John could see Mycroft watching the "introduction" with a mildly mused expression on his face. John refrained from sending Mycroft a "sod off" expression of his own, and turned his attention back to Sherlock.

"Dr. Hendricks is going out to our field hospital in the morning," Van Dyke was explaining, loudly. "The field hospital is for the villagers who have less than adequate availability to Western medicine."

One of the guests, who by her accent was from northern England, had quietly joined them. She was thirty-something, with frown lines already showing on her face. Her dark brown hair was twisted into a figure-eight bun at the nape of her neck; the pins she had used to hold her hair in place were topped with pale yellow fabric roses and tendrils of lace. The woman's gown was a deep green satin with more yellow roses and lace on the bodice of the gown. She wasn't pretty by any means, but the gown made her seem somehow elegant.

"Be careful when you are at the field hospital, Dr. _Hendricks_," she said, emphasizing John's last name in such a way that he instantly realized that she knew it wasn't his real name. "I hear there have been … _disappearances_." At John's (faked) puzzlement, she held out a hand. "Regina Asher. Call me Ginny."

Sherlock's eyebrows rose in surprise, and he mouthed "Sister" over Ginny's head to John. John gave a slight nod in acknowledgement. Now that he knew the woman's name, he remembered the photograph of Ross Asher which Mycroft had shown him, and he noted the similarities: The same strong jaw; the straight, flat nose; the bold cheekbones. But where Ross had black hair and eyes, Ginny's eyes were lighter, bordering on green, and her skin wasn't as dark as Ross's.

_Asher_, John mused, wasn't an Hispanic name, so they had to have had an English father but a mother from South America. Ginny confirmed as much when she noticed his surprised look, this one genuine. "My father was English," she said. "My brother and I have different mothers."

"Brother?" he asked, remembering to play the role of someone who was unfamiliar with the Asher family already.

"Ross. He disappeared two weeks ago near the field hospital."

"I'm sorry," John said automatically.

Henry Van Dyke chose that moment to start herding the stragglers into the embassy, and Ginny leaned in close to John, watching Van Dyke out of the corner of her eye. "You'll try to find Ross, won't you, Dr. Watson?"

* * *

John followed the British embassy aide from the helicopter to the waiting Jeep. The younger man had come to pick up John that morning to take him to his new assignment for Queen and country—an advisor to a group of Western doctors working with some of the indigenous population a few hundred kilometers outside Rawson on a mountainside. The flight had lasted over an hour, and had taken John over some of the wildest country he'd ever seen.

_So this is what Asher was involved in_, John mused as he watched the scenery up close now through the window of the Jeep. The driver made a few sharp turns, and then turned onto a bumpy dirt lane. _Medical anthropology, according to Ginny. What got him in so much trouble?_ He recalled what Van Dyke had said about anthropologists sometimes being mistaken for spies, and he wondered if that had been only part of the story, only part of the reason Ross Asher was missing. And there was something darker to this investigation, something that John didn't want to even begin thinking about, but knew he had to: If Asher had been kidnapped by anyone in the local drug ring (or worse), then things could get very ugly, very quickly. John shuddered inwardly and hoped that Sherlock was busy finding answers now.

"Here we are, sir," the driver said politely in his thick Cockney accent as he brought the Jeep to a stop in front of a few rough-shod huts constructed mostly from army-green canvas. He hadn't been in Trelew long enough for the local Hispanic accent to begin taking over. "The docs are stationed here. Something like one of those old MASH units they used in Korea."

John, grasping his army duffel and suitcase firmly, got out of the car. "The main headquarters," the driver said, also out of the car now and clearly familiar with the area, "is that hut near the lane. Most of the doctors here come in from one of the local villages every day, but there are a few docs who stay on site for the duration. It's a field hospital of sorts for the locals. For some of them, this is the only Western medical unit they've ever been to. I suggest you borrow a few books on the local cultures before you try implementing Western medical practices, though. Some of the older folks aren't too keen about us being out here."

"In other words," John said, "a 'When in Rome' situation."

"Essentially, yes. The embassy tells me that you're staying here?"

John refrained from a Sherlockian answer and simply answered in the affirmative as he shifted his grip on his suitcase.

* * *

Sherlock threw a crumpled-up sheet of paper at the garbage can and missed, again. This Ross Asher was a puzzle, even for him. Asher had been working on something big—that much Sherlock knew because the anthropologist had written his journals in a code. What that code was, though, Sherlock couldn't figure out. Asher had clearly had some sort of linguistic training, due to his copious use of the Anglo-Saxon runes, the Iberic language (which was astonishingly similar to the runes), and Irish Ogham of the fourth to tenth century AD. Asher had learned Welsh and Scottish Gaelic at some point, and words from those languages were scattered liberally through the journal. There were even words Sherlock was certain were Swahili. Sherlock chewed at his lip, scanning the mesh of odd symbols._ What had him so scared he felt the need to devise this kind of code and to change the code so frequently?_

He stared at the bit he'd managed to decode, but he had a nagging feeling that even if he did manage to decode Asher's journals, the journals wouldn't be useful at all. _We went out to the medical camp yesterday for the first time_, Sherlock read. _Henry Van Dyke seems to think I might be of use with my ethnobotany background. I think he's right, but why me? Why would someone with my lowly education be recruited by an embassy in Patagonia, of all places?_

Sherlock arched a brow. _Linguist, uncertain of his place in society, timid. Conclusion: Introvert._

He tackled the next bit. Sherlock tapped the pencil against the desk, stuck in the middle of a word that didn't make sense because its letters were in three different languages, then realization hit. _The Tallis Canon_. That was the code! And if he wasn't mistaken, there was some Satie, too—yes, _The Parade Ballet_. Ah, yes. The letters associated with the Tallis Canon were in Ogham; the Satie ballet notations were in Iberic. And….was that an old English ballad Asher had used as his reference point for the Anglo-Saxon runes? There was another element, though, that Sherlock was missing. But now that he had three parts to Asher's code, then he might, just might, be able to figure out the rest of it.

* * *

Ross Asher's head snapped back as the fist connected to his jaw. Closing his eyes, he slowly moved his head to its normal position and worked his jaw, something easier to do had he not been wearing a gag. All he'd been doing was trying to find the locals' version of a treatment for trench foot! Was that so hard for these people to understand? He hadn't _been_ involved in that little revolution started by the locals just a few weeks ago.

"This one won't talk," the man said, indicating Ross. He cracked his knuckles as he sat down, finished with Ross for the time being.

Beside Ross, Anna Rodriguez and Maria de la Villa were huddled together in the corner, both bound as he was. They'd been showing him the plants they used for the problems he'd been having. Had they, perhaps, trespassed into territory better left undisturbed? Ross grimaced behind the gag; hopefully, Henry Van Dyke would have noticed by now that he was missing.

"He's one of them," the man's companion said scornfully, nodding toward Anna and Maria. He coughed, a rough hawking sound, and spat a glob of spit at Ross's feet. "What makes you think you can beat the answer out of him?"

Ross couldn't help but be stunned. He'd only been in Argentina for a few weeks! Why would they have mistaken him already for a villager? Oh, that was it. His mother was from Argentina. Ross sighed, realizing that it had just become that much harder for him to escape.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

John set the book on Patagonian culture areas down on his bedside table in frustration. The tent he'd been given had three other doctors in it, all permanent for the duration of the field hospital, and frankly, John felt like an awkward fourth wheel trying to find the rhythm of the other three. The books they'd lent him didn't help much with his understanding of the local cultures—did he really need to remember that some of the cultures in South America, and elsewhere, greeted you with the phrase "Do you dream?"? He didn't think dream anthropology was necessarily going to be useful unless he needed to try to talk one of the other doctors out of trying to use Jungian or Freudian psychology on the locals to explain medical complaints, or domestic problems. That was what the resident team of anthropologists at the field hospital was for, wasn't it?

But then, back in England he hadn't even thought to pack that formal suit he had wound up begging from Henry Van Dyke. And as he'd learned in the Middle East, what was seemingly the most insignificant aspect of culture sometimes wound up being the most important.

John sighed, and rubbed his hands over his face. He could feel his eyes going bloodshot from trying to read so much about the local cultures, and wondered absently if there was anything in the hospital's medicine stockpile that would sooth the burning. _Was_ this assignment a good idea, at all? He'd talked to Ginny Asher the night before at the embassy, and was convinced, as was Sherlock, that everyone else at the embassy knew a lot more about Ginny and her brother Ross than they let on. Which, indirectly, meant that they probably knew exactly what had happened to Ross.

* * *

_Ginny sipped at her drink as Henry Van Dyke began herding everyone into the embassy. If Van Dyke was not in charge of the embassy himself, John thought, then he certainly held an extremely high position. _

"_How do you know that name?" John hissed, trying not to attract Van Dyke's, or anyone else's, attention._

"_Oh, please," Ginny scoffed. "You and your flatmate here are too well known in the Western world. Did you really think that you'd be unknown in this place? I knew you for who you really were the minute I saw you."_

"_The powers of observation," John said drily. Van Dyke came back over to them, and they headed inside. _

_John stared at the number of people in the embassy for this black-tie affair. He hadn't thought that there were this many Brits in Trelew and the surrounding area, but apparently there were. Good. He could lose Van Dyke and talk to Ginny in private—or at least, as private as the gathering would allow._

_The opportunity came almost immediately. The orchestra struck up a new tune, one John remembered as being an oddly lively funeral march from a Patrick McGoohan show, and motioned to Ginny to follow him. He quickly lost sight of both Van Dyke and Mycroft, and then realized with a start that Sherlock hadn't followed him. Then, as the crowd thinned slightly to his left, he could see Sherlock and Mycroft in quiet conversation and studying the crowd intently. John steered Ginny toward a crowded area of the room. It was risky, but better than being seen alone with her, especially if what she said was true and everyone else in the room knew his true name._

"_Tell me what you know about your brother," he said when he felt it was safe._

"_Ross's mother was from Argentina," Ginny said as quietly as she could and still be heard over the music. "She was originally from one of the villages near that field hospital unit you're going to tomorrow. When she died, Ross came here and was intent on finding the rest of his mother's family when Van Dyke recruited him for the embassy work. That was in January. We weren't particularly close growing up, and I lost contact with him when he was permanently sent to the field hospital for as long as his visa allowed. I suppose it was Van Dyke's way of telling him to look for his family."_

_She paused, and surveyed the room thoughtfully. "Then, three weeks ago, a revolt started in the area to the north of the field hospital. A week later, Ross disappeared, along with several villagers that the workers at the field hospital had known. Some of them, I found out, were directly employed by the field hospital."_

_John pursed his lips. "What do you think happened, Ginny?" he asked quietly. _

"_I don't think he was captured because of the revolt," she said after a long pause. "I can't explain it, but…I don't trust Van Dyke. It seems like he's in this deeper than what he really is. I think he may have sent Ross to the hospital unit because he knew this would happen. Either knew it, or wanted to use the hospital unit as an excuse to get rid of him."_

"_Why? Did he have a vendetta against Ross?"_

_Ginny shrugged, and sipped her drink. "I don't know," she admitted. "And I don't know why Van Dyke is sending you and your flatmate after him."_

"_He's not. Mycroft is."_

"_Yes, but who is Mycroft working with in orchestrating all of this?" Ginny demanded, arching a brow. "Van Dyke. The answer is clear, at least in that regard. I don't know what role Van Dyke had to play in my brother's disappearance, or why he agreed to help you find him, but be careful. And find Ross."_

_Ginny excused herself after the tune was finished, saying she needed to use the ladies' room. John smiled at her and found himself watching her leave, wondering how he'd managed to get so caught up in something that seemed all smoke and mirrors. He thought back to the odd feeling he got around Van Dyke, oily and smooth and trusting and hatred all at once, and tried to shake off what was little more than premonition. At the same time, though, John couldn't help but remember that nearly every time he'd gotten in trouble in the Middle East, he'd had that same feeling of foreboding._

* * *

John sighed again, and decided to go to the meal tent to see if there were at least some bags of Twinings tea.

The hospital camp was set up on a steep hillside, and many of the tent platforms had been partially placed on stilts to account for the slope. In the distance, clouds gathered over a large lake. John frowned, studying the hills. One of his roommates at university had said once that when distant hills took on a purple hue in the middle of the day, it meant rain. Did purple hills mean rain in Patagonia, too? John wondered as he ambled toward the meal tent. He frowned again as he brushed past unfamiliar plants, and made a mental note to see if the unit's anthropologists had any books on local biology. John had a feeling the most intense injuries would be caused by the non-human residents of the area.

John finally reached the meal tent, and found his tea. One of the long-term doctors in the tent neighbouring his, Robbie MacDonald, waved John over to the seat across from him.

MacDonald grinned at John as the latter sat. "Settling in?" he asked in his thick Scottish accent, taking a bite of his crumpet. He pursed his lips at the crumpet, and added more clotted cream to it.

"Yeah," John replied, sipping at his tea (he'd declined the crumpets offered him by both the kitchen staff and MacDonald). "Just brushing up on the local cultures here before I officially start on Monday."

MacDonald snorted around his mouthful of crumpet. "'Officially start'? You've no idea what a field hospital really is, do you?"

John tensed before remembering that in this place, he'd never been in the military, but instead had been a doctor at a hospital in an area of London that saw frequent gang warfare.

"Right, thought not," MacDonald said, swallowing. Thunder rumbled in the distance. "First," he continued, wiping his fingers on a napkin, "believe it or not, we're in an area of political unrest. Couple of weeks back, one of our blokes was snatched from his tent along with some villagers who worked here because the snatchers thought he had something to do with the revolt some of their enemies had started about a week before that. Follow so far?"

"I think so," John said. "Your mate—what's his name?—was captured by rogue villagers."

"His name's Ross. Ross Asher. Henry Van Dyke brought him out, same as he brought out every other poor bloke who's disappeared up in here."

"Wait—there are other disappearances?" John demanded. Why hadn't Van Dyke, or Mycroft, told him?

MacDonald frowned at him, seeming to realize, he'd said too much, then gathered up his dishes. "Forget it," he muttered crumpling up his napkin and throwing it on his plate. "Just…be careful, yeah?"

Thunder rumbled and banged for a good hour after John went back to his tent. Finally, after a particularly loud crack of thunder, John struggled into a rain suit given him by the camp's administrator. No sooner had he buckled the straps on the overalls did the rains start.

In ernest.

John quickly found out, when his flatmates came dashing in from the rain a few minutes after he threw on his rain coat, just how waterproof the tent was _not_. All the four of them could do was spread plastic rubbish bags over their bedding and clothing and hope most of it stayed dry.

"Welcome to Argentina," one of the other men said drily after they'd done their best covering what they could. "Jack Gordon," he added, holding out a hand to John. "So. You're the new doc."

"Yeah," John replied, and winced as a loud crash of thunder almost immediately followed a brilliant flash of lightning. "John Hendricks, from London."

"Primarily," Jack said, eyeing John's black rain gear, "this is a British unit. There are a few doctors here from other countries, but we're mostly Brits. What's your specialty?" he asked quickly.

"Gunshot wounds," John replied, remembering that the best lies were the ones that were mostly true.

"Well," one of the others said, a shorter man named Nathan Wilson, "maybe soon you'll be in your element, if that revolt is anything to judge by."

John was saved from answering as a wall of water gushed in through the mosquito netting that served as a window. Jack and Nathan dove for the items under the window, their actions punctuated with loud curses. The fourth flatmate, Mike Sampson, cursed just as loudly when he realized that the newly formed waterfall was headed for his cot.

"Does it always rain this hard?" John asked as he helped Mike lift the cot to a higher spot (on top of a plastic bin used for clothing).

"No idea," Mike said. "It's my first season here."

Very suddenly, the tent's wooden plank flooring lurched to the side. Everyone scrambled to grab onto something steady, something _sturdy_. "What's going on?" Jack Gordon wondered from where he gripped the top of the doorframe.

Mike was the one to answer. "That rain storm we had yesterday, before John came. The ground is still saturated from it."

"Landslide," John said, realizing what Mike was trying to say.

Mike nodded. "Hopefully that was just the edge of it."

"I think it was," John replied, picturing the layout of the camp and trying to visualize where the landslide had occurred with the lurch of the tent as the reference point. "We got lucky." Everyone jumped at the flash of lightning followed immediately by a loud crack of thunder.

"With the landslide, yes!" Jack said. "No telling what will happen with the rest of the storm!"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A/N: Play on words ahead! I've been on an H.G. Wells kick lately. His quote about the Martians at the beginning of War of the Worlds was rather appropriate for this chapter.

* * *

Sherlock paced Van Dyke's outer office. He never was one for waiting, even as a child when he'd been summoned to Father's den for some wrongdoing or other. Van Dyke's secretary, yet another Brit (Northern England, same accent as Ginny. Probably Northeast England, near the border but on the coast) who wasn't nearly as effective nor productive as Mycroft's Athnea. Sherlock took in the secretary's clothing, all purchased second-hand before coming to Argentina. She gave him a nervous smile too much like the ones Molly Hooper gave him, and turned her attention back to her computer screen.

Sherlock turned his own attention to the antique grandfather clock by the door, but just as he was determining the country of origin of the clock, Van Dyke opened the door to his inner office.

"Come in, Eric," he said.

Sherlock winced at the false name, but stood and gathered Ross Asher's journals under his arm.

"I've done it," he said once he was inside the inner office with the door safely closed. He allowed himself enough time to look around the office. The Oriental rug was antique, and in excellent condition; it must have cost at least a small fortune when it was bought during the Second World War. A smaller grandfather clock that otherwise was a twin to the one in the outer office graced the wall by the door. Both the clocks had been made in Germany. A large tatted lace doily (made by Van Dyke's mother or grandmother, no doubt) lay on a small circular table under the window, and a carafe of ice water with two tumblers next to the carafe rested on the doily.

"I've translated Asher's journals," Sherlock finished.

Van Dyke's eyebrows rose into his hairline. "And?" he asked.

"They're fake."

"I'm not—"

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Van Dyke. "Don't play games with me, Van Dyke. The journals are fake. Oh, the apartment may have been Ross Asher's at one point, but now it has your mark all over it. Don't try to deny it. I know that you know what really happened to Ross Asher."

Henry Van Dyke sighed. "You're clever. Too clever."

"What does that mean?"

"You were right about the journals. But not all of them are fake." Van Dyke raised a hand, cutting Sherlock off. "Hear me out, Sherlock. I don't know who I can trust here. I'm sorry for the deception. I needed some outsiders I could trust."

"So you turned to Mycroft, and he sent you John and me. That does not answer everything."

"Regina Asher was concerned for her brother when she lost contact with him. I acted as I saw fit. What did she tell you at the gathering last night?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Everything she knows about Ross's disappearance." He finally sat in the chair next to Van Dyke's desk, remembering.

* * *

_Ginny sipped at her drink as Van Dyke began herding them into the embassy. Sherlock and John exchanged looks; Van Dyke was certainly in charge here. John seemed awed by the number of people in the embassy, but Sherlock wasn't impressed. He'd seen far more people in one room before, during the functions his parents had hosted when he'd been a child. Tonight paled by comparison to even the ones he'd been dragged to as a teenager when his father had been introducing him to everyone in his contacts. Suddenly, he knew what John had meant the few times John had called him a "poor little rich boy" in some of the rows they had. He took these things for granted. John, growing up in the lower middle class, had probably never been to such a gathering before. Even the press conferences back home didn't seem to make him nearly as nervous as he was now._

_Caught up in his musings, he almost missed hearing Ginny hiss John's true name when Van Dyke left them._

_As John steered Ginny to a crowded area of the dance floor, Sherlock felt a hand on his shoulder. He didn't have to turn to know it was Mycroft. Had he heard Ginny speak that name? If he had heard it, then had others?_

"_What do you want?" he asked, turning to look his brother in the eye._

"_To talk. Van Dyke isn't to be trusted." Mycroft motioned for him to follow. They found a spot on the edge of the dance floor. As the crowd thinned slightly, they could see John and Ginny standing, talking. No doubt John was pressing Ginny for more information. Sherlock saw John search the crowd, and meet his eyes, before the crowd thickened again._

"_What about her?" Sherlock demanded, watching Ginny sip her drink. The woman was hardly pretty, but she'd clearly been trained in etiquette. The way she held her drink, the expensive manicure and lacquer on her fingernails, the way she moved in that dress, the lace in her hair were clues enough about that. "She knows who we really are. If she tells the wrong people here, there could be trouble."_

"_Van Dyke might know more than he's letting on. I have security footage from his office the night Ross Asher disappeared. It was delayed in coming to me."_

"_And?"_

"_A van appears in a few frames of the footage. Van Dyke got in the van, and you can clearly see that Ross Asher is also in the van."_

"_I was told he was taken from the hospital camp. From what I understand, the locals raid it periodically?"_

"_That is indeed the case. The footage must have been from after Ross was taken from the camp. The administrator of that camp reported the raid to the British embassy at 1:30 am. The footage is from 5 am."_

_Sherlock steepled his hands beneath his chin. "Then Van Dyke had a hand in his disappearance."_

_Sherlock, musing over what Mycroft had told him, saw that Ginny had left John, and brushed off his brother to meet the woman before he lost her for good that night_

"_Mr. Holmes," Ginny said. She was too much like Irene Adler. Elegant, refined. The only thing missing was the beauty. _

_Sherlock said, "I'm called Eric Sigerson."_

"_Called that, yes," Ginny said. The orchestra struck up a new tune, something by Mozart that Sherlock vaguely remembered learning to sing in primary school music lessons. "Isn't it interesting how, if the situation requires it, a person can tell the complete truth about himself and yet lie through his teeth the entire time?"_

"_Sometimes, falsehoods are necessary."_

"_To this extent?" She meandered over to the refreshment table, and Sherlock followed her, watching as she set her empty glass down on a tray. "If you deny that you are lying, then you are no better than Van Dyke."_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_Van Dyke knows what happened to my brother. I can't prove it, though, and I didn't want to cause problems for John by showing him this. I need your help." _

_She reached into the handbag on her wrist, pulled out a crumpled Polaroid photograph, and thrust it at him. A man wearing ripped and tattered clothing was the subject of the photograph. His face was mottled with bruises and his hands were bound above him to a metal ring. _

"_I was given this by the hotel clerk this morning. The clerk said that Van Dyke, or at least someone looking like him, delivered it. My brother lives, but Heavens only knows for how much longer."_

* * *

Sherlock remembered the photograph of Ross Asher, and his stomach churned. He was no stranger to hostage situations—he still shuddered to think of what might have happened at the pool if things had been different. But this man….this man was innocent. John, at least, had had an excuse because he'd been a way for Moriarty to get to Sherlock. What had Ross Asher been involved in to land him in such trouble? Sherlock's eyes narrowed again at Van Dyke, and he was finally unable to contain himself. "A man's life is at stake, and you've sent my friend into a region where he could potentially be killed! Why are you willing to risk so much?"

Van Dyke didn't answer.

"Van Dyke, this morning my brother showed me the security footage from this building. It was taken the very night Ross Asher disappeared. You got into a van that very clearly shows Ross Asher inside, bound and gagged. You say that you do not know who can be trusted here, and yet there is evidence _against_ you in this case." Sherlock got up and walked to the door, paused and turned back to Van Dyke. "Are you really such an apostle of mercy as to complain if others warred in the same spirit?"

He slammed the door behind him for good measure on his way out, and wondered if the crash of glass he heard from behind it was Henry Van Dyke throwing one of those tumblers at the door.

Sherlock stormed out of Van Dyke's office and the embassy. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and he idly noted that it was coming from the direction Mycroft had said that the hospital camp was in. He groaned. He'd always had John by his side on cases, and now he was stuck dealing with a traitor on his own. Oh, Moriarty had been a handful in his own right. Did Van Dyke have ties to him? Or was it just plain dumb luck that Van Dyke was hiding what he knew?

* * *

"Oi, Eric!"

Sherlock prided himself on rarely showing emotions, but when he did he had a short temper (it admittedly had become worse since he'd gone off the nicotine). Ginny was the last person he wanted to talk to, especially after finding out that his current employer very likely had had a hand in kidnapping her brother.

Ginny caught up with him half a block away from the embassy, a brown canvas messenger-style bag dangling from her shoulder. She was wearing leather boots and jeans. A black leather jacket partially hid a deep blue blouse with more of that handmade lace on the collar. Had she made that doily in Van Dyke's office? It was the same kind of lace, and if he was not mistaken, the same hand that had made that doily had made the lace on her blouse. And if she had made the lace on her collar, then surely she had made the lace that graced her dress and hair at the embassy the night before John left. So. Where did that leave him with her? Attention to detail, willing to delve to the bottom for what she needed? Yes, that fit.

"I saw you come out," she said, and took in his appearance. "You're not pleased with how the meeting went."

"Great Scot, it can think!" Sherlock snapped, and brushed past her. He didn't particularly care that Ginny didn't understand. "I just walked out of a criminal's office. How do you think it went?"

"So it's true, then. He _was_ involved in Ross's disappearance!"

Sherlock stopped storming down the sidewalk, and looked at Ginny thoughtfully. "He never admitted anything, and I can't prove a bloody thing! He told me that he didn't know who he could trust here."

Ginny's outburst at this was as he had expected. "_What?_ Why does he want to gain our _trust_? Oh, and that reminds me," she added, opening her bag. "I, er, made a visit to his apartment this morning and found this." She pulled a Polaroid camera out of her bag, then quickly stuffed it back in—but not before Sherlock noted it was the same make and model that had taken the photograph of Ross Asher. She knew as well as he did that they were still in the range of the embassy security cameras. "There are only four photographs that have been taken with it. I couldn't find the other three. I still have mine."

"I'm sure," Sherlock said carefully, "that Van Dyke is not the only person in Trelew nostalgic enough for a Polaroid camera."

Ginny looked at him in disbelief. "You really think that, in this day and age when everybody, (yourself included, I might add), relies on mobile phones and digital cameras for documenting events? No. The photograph I have of Ross was taken by somebody who doesn't want their location traced. If you send a photograph via phone or computer you can trace it. The Polaroid solves that problem quite neatly."

Sherlock opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. She had a point that he hadn't thought of. Finally, he said, "I don't know who I can trust here. John is off at that hospital camp involved in God only knows what. I need help here. And I think we'd be better off to get to that camp as soon as possible."


End file.
